Word: turkomans
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...matters into their own hands. New Kurdish neighborhoods have sprung up in army barracks, government offices, Saddam's old intelligence headquarters, a youth center and beside Kirkuk's soccer stadium. A U.S. military officer says ethnic militias on all sides are adding to their already substantial arms caches. Local Turkomans, fearing domination by Kurds, have formed a new alliance with Kirkuk's Arabs. Aliya Chakmakchi, a Turkoman who works as a secretary for the U.S. Army in Kirkuk, voices a widespread fear: "If the U.S. leaves here, everyone will just murder each other." --By Philip Smucker/Kirkuk
Mosul might have seemed an odd place for the brothers to take refuge, given its sizable Kurdish and Turkoman minorities, populations that are not favorably inclined toward the former regime. The area has not been a center of active resistance against occupying U.S. forces. But in other ways, Mosul was a comfortable fit for the brothers, because key elements of Saddam's top officer corps came from there. At what point the brothers arrived in Mosul, a scenic city that is a popular family holiday destination, remains unclear. As TIME reported in the June 2 issue, in late May Uday...
...presence of the Turkish soldiers highlights the increasing possibilities of instability in the region, which has a sizable Turkoman population that has clashed with the Kurdish majority since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In the first days after Kirkuk fell to allied forces on April 10th, Turkoman families and political parties were attacked by bands of Kurdish looters. In a dramatic display on April 11, an enraged group of Turkoman men dumped the body of a small boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, in front of the Daralsalum Hotel where international journalists had taken rooms...
...American commanders in the city believe the covert Turkish team was meant to inflame these kind of tensions. "These [Turkish] forces are tied in to Turkoman groups in the city," says Col Mayville. The 173rd Airborne commanders suspect an amalgam of local Turkoman parties under the banner of the Iraqi Turkoman Front (ITF) were to be used by the covert team to wreak havoc. "In this first convoy was real aid. They'd do this two or three times then money or weapons would have started flowing in. We suspect their role was to strongarm or discipline the members...
...Some peshmerga commandeered tanks and drove them through the city, jublilantly shooting off rounds from their Kalashnikovs. One Turkoman man approached reporters in an attempt to get his car back; it had been stolen that morning. A crowd of children picked through the rubble left inside the Ministry for Northern Iraq, while a man outside took the only thing left worth anything: the garden's daffodils...